Ice Chokes Connecticut River in Haddam, Causing "Emergency Condition"

Meteorologist Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel reports from the banks of the Housatonic River in Kent on Thursday morning where a severe ice jam potentially threatens more flooding to communities down river. Cantore and his crew originally expected to report about snowfall in Hartford during Wednesday's storm. Officials have declared a state of emergency in Kent, where ice jams and rising water from the Housatonic River have forced evacuations and flooded a road and the Kent School — closing it for a week.

Ice dams and flooding pose a danger to Haddam residents, the town's top elected official said, prompting her to declare that an "emergency condition" exists in the riverside town.

First Selectwoman Lizz Milardo made the emergency declaration Thursday. The proclamation will be forwarded to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in hopes he will proclaim that the town is in a state of emergency so the town may get state and federal assistance for any damage.

Advertisement

"The First Selectman has declared that an emergency condition exists throughout the said Town…It has now been found that local resources are unable to cope with the effects of said emergency," according to a copy of the declaration on the town's Facebook page.

State police at the Troop F barracks in Westbrook said Thursday morning that they were not aware of any emergencies, such as serious flooding or injuries, in Haddam.

The town has now drawn attention as did Kent, where a boarding school and roads were flooded by the Naugatuck River this week. The ice dams have attracted national attention.

In Haddam, where the Connecticut River narrows and a steel swing bridge spans the 881 feet separating its banks, jagged slabs of ice lie atop each other like broken teeth in need of orthodontia, paralyzing the river and rendering it a silent, craggy tundra.

South of the East Haddam Bridge is open water. North of the bridge is an icy chokehold.

"I don't think it's ice — I think it's rock!" shouted Bruce Jackson's grandson, who was clambering over a sedan-sized shard near the Haddam bank. Jackson, of Newington, had brought his two grandsons down to Haddam to see the rugged ice formations on a snow day.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime sight," Jackson said. "I've lived in Connecticut all my life, and I've never seen this. It's amazing how strong Mother Nature can be."

Haddam's crystallized stretch of river was perhaps the most dramatic of Wednesday's weather, which turned out to be less severe than most forecasters had predicted. The National Weather Service downgraded its earlier winter storm warning to an advisory early Wednesday, citing snow totals that were lower than expected.

Meteorologists had predicted up to 8 inches of snow in parts of the state; the National Weather Service said 3 to 5 inches fell in central Connecticut, though some isolated areas received 6 inches or more.

A massive ice jam has formed on the Connecticut River just north of the East Haddam swing bridge, drawing a steady stream of onlookers armed with cameras on Wednesday. On Sunday, the ice on the river started to break up due to heavy rains and warm temperatures, causing a build up of large slabs of twelve-inch-thick ice where the river bottle necks just north of the bridge.

Travel remained relatively unimpeded. The state's highways remained in good shape, thanks in part to a pre-treatment program by the Department of Transportation, said Kevin Nursick, a department spokesman.

Metro North reported no train delays, although some flights out of Bradley International Airport were delayed or canceled because of the snowfall. By Wednesday evening, about half of the airport's departures were significantly delayed, and a handful were canceled.

In Haddam, a stream of onlookers filed through nearly continuously Wednesday to marvel at the frozen river, whose craggy, dirty-white surface looked like the surface of the moon.

"The Weather Channel, they show these crazy weather phenomenons and you're like, 'Man, I wish I could see something like that.' And now — look!" said Josh Sherman. Young kids scrambled over the ice hunks to investigate. Older ones climbed on to take selfies.

"It's turned into a circus out there," said David Papallo Jr., who has owned the marina just north of the East Haddam Bridge for the past 18 years.

Advertisement

On Sunday, Papallo — who lives on the riverbank — looked out his living room window and noticed one of the marina's pilings was crooked. Odd, he thought, because it was the piling closest to land, and furthest from the river.

He went out to investigate, and saw the ice had wrenched other pilings out of place. Fifteen pilings had been knocked down, and the docks were twisted and cracked.

"At that point, I knew it was really bad," he said. And the ice broke, deafeningly and all at once. For the next three minutes, Papallo said, "all hell broke loose. Everything was getting destroyed; everything was cracking and breaking."

Papallo figures that last week's unseasonably warm temperatures, coupled with heavy rain, made the river swollen with runoff. The severe cold spell earlier in the month had crusted the river over with a sheet of ice 16 inches thick in places, and when the river swallowed rainwater and runoff from melting ice, the water level rose and placed tremendous pressure on the overlaying ice sheet. On Sunday, that pressure proved too much, and the ice exploded outside Papallo's marina in shrieking cacophony.

"The sound was something I can't forget," he said. "It's this consistent crushing sound, and you get a sense of the force that's at play. It was like how a train would sound if you were 100 yards away."

But in three minutes, it was over. And two hours later, Papallo said, the broken-up ice floated south, under the bridge, leaving behind only the pieces that clung to the shore and each other.